After a gestation period of ten years, The Catcher in the Rye was published on July 16, 1951, changing American fiction and J.D. Salinger's life. As French points out, Salinger was "unprepared for the kind of cult success" brought by the novel. The author progressively became one of the most famous of literary recluses, moving to Cornish, New Hampshire, in 1953 and rarely granting interviews or making public appearances. He found fame abhorrent and literary criticism distasteful.
When Ian Hamilton attempted an unauthorized biography of J.D. Salinger in the 1980s, Salinger successfully protested the use of letters that he had written to friends and editors between 1939 and 1961. He claimed infringement of copyright and invasion of privacy even though the letters had been donated to libraries and were available for study. A Federal Appeals Court denied use of even short quotations or paraphrases from the letters. Salinger was granted legal injunctions against publication of Hamilton's book; these were upheld when the United States Supreme Court refused to review the verdicts of two lower federal courts that held in favor of Salinger. The decision was considered extraordinary. According to David Margolic, legal affairs writer for the New York Times, this was "the first time in American memory that a book had been enjoined prior to publication, and it sent shock waves throughout the academic and publishing communities" (November 1, 1987).
